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Tango Poems and Tango Lyrics

In the early years of tango, tango lyrics were generally comic. They were usually
written in the first person, and described some excellent quality that the character
possessed. As the popularity of tango grew in Paris and across the world, there
started to be a market for tango music and tango recordings amongst the middle and
upper classes in Argentina. This put pressure on both the tango music and the tango
lyrics to change.

From about 1917 onwards a new sort of tango lyric began to be written. Many of finest
poets that Argentina and Uruguay have ever produced have written tango lyrics. And
as the tango lyrics improved in quality, this was also the period when great tango
singers began to emerge, and then to dominate the tango scene. Alongside the development
of the tango as an instrumental form, the tango-song form started gaining popularity
in the mid-1920's. Many of the first tangos with lyrics were included in the popular
theater form known as sainete. Singers, both male and female, adopted these new
songs into their repertoire. They were mostly accompanied by guitars. Among the
most popular singers of the first generation were
Carlos Gardel (1890-1935), Ignacio Corsini (1891-1967), Agustin Magaldi
(1901-1938), Azucena Maizani (1902-?), Rosita Quiroga (1901-1984), Mercedes Simone
(1904-?) and Libertad Lamarque (1909-1999), all of whom were very popular and recorded
prolifically.

Carlos Gardel
was born on December 11, 1890 in Toulouse, France (as Charles Romuald Gardes), his
mother brought him to Argentina at 27 months of age. Gardel's career was cut short
in 1935, he lost his life in a plane crash in Medellin , Colombia on June 24, 1935.
He recorded hundreds of songs and created some of the most beautiful renditions
of classics such as
Volvió Una Noche,
El Día que me Quieras,
Tomo y Obligo,
Madreselva and
Mi Buenos Aires Querido. He was to become very popular
throughout Latin America by the exposure provided by the new media of radio and
film. The 1940's also saw a rise of the tango-song form that was propelled by a
new generation of singers, most notably Roberto Goyeneche (1926-1994), Alberto Podesta
(1924- ), Francisco Fiorentino (1905-1955), Alberto Castillo (1914- ) and Angel
Vargas (1904-1959).